Fabrizio Stays on Top

Henny Ray Abrams | June 27, 2009

The Ducati Xerox team dominated a tight final qualifying session in advance of Superpole later this afternoon at the Donington Park circuit in the British East Midlands.Michel Fabrizio remained the fastest rider, a day after taking the provisional pole, but now he was joined by teammate Nori Haga, who too nearly a second off his Friday time. The pair were separated by .178 seconds.Yamaha’s Ben Spies was third fastest and only .024 sec. behind Haga, the championship leader. Spies, in turn, had just .087 secs. on Hannspree Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea, the leading rider of three in a row from the United Kingdom. Behind him came Stiggy Racing Honda’s Leon Haslam and Yamaha’s Tom Skyes.Sykes had only .004 sec on DFX Corse’s Lorenzo Lanzi, the Italian with only .067 on Guandalini Racing’s Gregorio Lavilla. In fact, the top 15 riders were all on the same second, including 12th fastest John Hopkins on the second Stiggy Racing Honda.Hopkins’ fellow countrymen didn’t fare as well. Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking qualified 25th in place of the injured Makoto Tamada. Hacking, who was born in England, was racing for the first time in front of much of his family on their home ground. And Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young qualified 28th in his first ever overseas trip and World Superbike appearance. Young was riding in place of Fonsi Nieto, who’d taken over after Max Neukirchner was injured earlier in the year.

Saturday Qualifying:

1. Michel Fabrizio (Ducati) 1:30.493

2. Nori Haga (Ducati) 1:30.671

3. Ben Spies (Yamaha) 1:30.695

4. Jonathan Rea (Honda) 1:30.782

5. Leon Haslam (Honda) 1:30.803

6. Tom Sykes (Yamaha) 1:30.957

7. Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati) 1:30.961

8. Gregorio Lavilla (Ducati) 1:31.028

9. Max Biaggi (Aprilia) 1:32.243

10. Shane Byrne (Ducati) 1:31.311

Other:

12. John Hopkins (Honda) 1:31.382

25. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 1:32.245

28. Blake Young (Suzuki) 1:32.735

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.